Christmas truce

[la-troy]

I think this truce symbolizes what is good and bad about the human race.

Imagine the fighting and the blood, the countless deaths and the hatred they where supposed to have for each other.

Compare this to the days of the truce the drinking the football games the sense that they were all men not really knowing what they where fighting for.The Germans who were supposed to be inhumane bastards almost had mutiny because they refused to fight.

And the imagine one death and all the friendship was forgotten they where once against
enemies all the good forgotten due to one bad.

hopefully I am right in placing this in history.

[RedAnarchist]

I think that two things have to eb remembered -

1. Britain and Germany were not the main players of the war originally - they were dragged in via alliances so, although there was a lot of nationalism whipped up in each country around 1914, I don't think they would have gotten involved if the alliances weren't in place.

2. The First World War, as you probably know, was supposed "to end at Christmas". As the soldiers were still there in the freezing trenches shooting at each other whilst their officers were miles away in luxury, working class unity would have won over patriotic violence, resulting in a friendly game of football.

Unfortunately, the war didn't end at Christmas and so many young working-class men were lost.

[la-troy]

hmm was it not German who got everybody so hyped up there would have to be war.

Yea working class unity was really shone there

good times?

[luxemburg89]

good times?

Have you read Dulce et Decorum Est? The good times would have been at home safe, they were probably all sad. Knowing they had to kill them the next day, would you have considered that good times? I reckon it would have made the war even harder for them. The only thing good about WWI was the poetry.

[Organic Revolution]

Well, it shows to me the duality of man. These young men who would have been together on the shop floor organizing, were forced into war by their leaders.

[RebelDog]

People with the same interests play football and drink together. People with conflicting interests get working class people to kill each other because working class people do all the work no matter how gruesome. WW1 was significant. Had the working class turned their guns a mere 180 degrees we might be living in a world without capitalism right now.

[la-troy]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 12:47 am

good times?

Have you read Dulce et Decorum Est? The good times would have been at home safe, they were probably all sad. Knowing they had to kill them the next day, would you have considered that good times? I reckon it would have made the war even harder for them. The only thing good about WWI was the poetry.
No i have not read that book don't think I ever will ( libraries out here suck, Can't even get a copy of Das Kapital to save my own life)

The "good times" i would be refering to would be the not killing anyone just drinking and having fun compared to the rest of the war that was definitely good times. Also the truce lasted about two weeks didn't it?

Also could some of the credit for the Russian revolution be given to the war and also the length of the war be partially credited to the Russian revolution?

[Sir Aunty Christ]

It's a poem. (http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html)

[la-troy]

Thanks I read. Don't really see anything shocking and anything to say that it was a great poem.